Terrified, Lucy started up, but her father’s fingers still clasped hers, and, conquering her fear, she sat quietly beside him until footsteps sounded at the door and Major Greyson entered.
“All right—stay where you are,” he nodded, his eyes on Colonel Gordon’s face.
The sun moved slowly across the floor, as for an hour Lucy sat silent and motionless, until her father’s fingers at last relaxed, and he fell into a quiet sleep.
Miss Pearse put an arm about Lucy’s cramped shoulders and led her from the room and out into the garden.
“You poor little kid, you haven’t had your breakfast,” she said, pointing to the tray she had made ready and set on the old stone bench. “We’ve finished long ago. Sit down this minute and eat, and I’ll call Mr. Leslie. He’s been waiting to talk to you.”
Lucy thought she had never tasted anything so delicious as that breakfast of bread and army bacon. She could not stop for more than a nod to Mr. Leslie when he approached her, but his thoughtful smile had a far-away look in it as though he had plenty to think over while he waited for his little cousin to satisfy her hunger. At last she put aside her tray and he sat down by her on the bench, drawing some papers and envelopes from his pocket.
“I’m going off to-day, Lucy,” he began, “to attend to some business of my own, and secondly, to arrange for your return to England. Hold on a minute and let me finish,” he said quickly, as Lucy showed every sign of interrupting him. “I have to make those arrangements a day or two ahead if you are to get through with as little delay as we had in coming here. These papers have to be signed by the proper authorities, and they cannot always be found at a moment’s notice. It doesn’t mean that you must leave to-morrow or even the day after, though I have just had rather a debate with Major Greyson on the subject.”
“Does he wish me to go?” asked Lucy indignantly.
“No, I’ll have to confess it was I who made the suggestion. I said this beastly bombardment was too hard on your nerves. Your father is better, your mother is on her way here, and you ought to go. Major Greyson seemed to think he knows you better than I. He declared that your nerves could stand the strain, and that so long as you were here you might stay two or three days longer, for your father’s sake.”
“He’s right; I can stand it,” exclaimed Lucy with a quick, happy smile, for it is happiness to have struggled hard for courage and to have found it at last. “I may stay, Cousin Henry—you said I might?” she pleaded, all her fear and loneliness forgotten in renewed longing to be of service to her father, and to see her mother again, if only for an hour.